


The Wonder of the Universe

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29031813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: "Just one trip," the Doctor said, with his furrowed brow and closed expression and those millennia-old eyes.And Rose looked up at him with a smile and a nod before rushing through the bright blue doors of the TARDIS, treating the 'Pull To Open' sign with earnest disregard."Just one," she confirms.Written for Bulletproof 2021
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	The Wonder of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StormySocks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormySocks/gifts).



Falling down the rabbit hole felt like a tiny thing at first. 

A wobble. 

A stumble. 

Barely a lurch, at worst.

"Just one trip," the Doctor said, wearing his furrowed brow and a closed expression and those millennia-old eyes. 

And Rose looked up at him with a smile and a nod before rushing through the bright blue doors of the TARDIS, treating the 'Pull To Open' sign with earnest disregard.

"Just one," she confirms.

Rose fully intended those words to be true, but one trip turned into two, and two trips then multiplied into dozens upon dozens of adventures. 

Rose and the Doctor criss-crossed the universe together, perpetual tourists in a thousand situations that stretched beyond reality and into a world of fantasy. 

They drifted through a garden of over-sized plants, listening to the song that the wind wove as it tickled petals and wound around stems. 

They sat in a circle of mushrooms and, with smoke hovering in the air around them, traded thoughts with a bright blue caterpillar. 

They listened to stories woven by a energetic pair of twins that seemed to share a single mind.

They relied upon nigh-inscrutable directions from a cat-like creature to help rescue them from being stranded on a woodland planet. 

They suffered through a fake trial and escaped the threat of lethal punishment by the skin of their teeth. 

And though all of those things might have scared most humans away from this alien lifestyle, Rose thrived on it. 

She adored the mystery of it all. 

She loves the feeling of being swept up in something more important than herself. 

Perhaps most importantly of all, after all this time, she was still falling. 

Except instead of falling down a rabbit hole, she was falling for the Doctor -- this incredible, bright, complicated person who took her hand and carried her out of her world and into another. 

Rose did not know if she would ever stop falling, if she would ever hit the ground and bounce back into reality. All she could do was and hold the Doctor's hand tight and tag along as the TARDIS deposited them in place after place and time after time. 

If Rose had the choice, she would fall forever.

She told him as much once. 

"How long are you going to stay with me?" the Doctor asked. 

Rose looked directly back at him, tearing her eyes away from drifting snow and magnificent natural architecture, and declared, quite simply, "Forever." 

Though she half-expected him to protest, much to her surprise, he did not. 

Perhaps he was falling, too. 

That very idea -- true or not -- meant almost as much to Rose as the universe itself. 

It meant more than the stars. 

More than the planets. 

More than the beautiful suns that sustained life in so many different places. 

In that moment, life felt both infinite and wonderful, and Rose leaned against the Doctor -- wrapping him a tight hug, feeling the twin beat of his hearts in his chest -- and beamed as brightly as a woman in love has ever beamed before. 


End file.
